A Pledge of Silence

When Margie Bauer joins the Army Nurse Corps in 1941, she is delighted to be assigned to Manila - the Pearl of the Orient. Though rumors of war circulate, she feels safe - the island is fortified, the airbases are ample, and the Filipino troops are well-trained.

Three Daughters: A Novel

Born in rural Palestine, just before the dawn of the 20th century, Miriam adores her father and is certain his love will protect her, but she soon finds that tradition overrides love. Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam's rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality.

Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity is a compelling, emotionally rich story with universal themes of friendship and loyalty, heroism and bravery. Two young women from totally different backgrounds are thrown together during World War II: one a working-class girl from Manchester, the other a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a wireless operator. Yet whenever their paths cross, they complement each other perfectly and before long become devoted friends. But then a vital mission goes wrong....

Finding Rebecca

Nothing could keep Christopher and Rebecca apart: not her abusive parents, or even the fiancé she brought home after running away to England. But when World War II finally strikes the island of Jersey, the Nazi invaders ship Rebecca to Europe as part of Hitler’s Final Solution against the Jewish population.

The Diggers Rest Hotel: Charlie Berlin, Book 1

In 1947, two years after witnessing the death of a young Jewish woman in Poland, Charlie Berlin has rejoined the police force a different man. Sent to investigate a spate of robberies in rural Victoria, he soon discovers that World War II has changed even the most ordinary of places and people.

The Whiskey Sea

Motherless and destitute, Frieda Hope grows up during Prohibition determined to make a better life for herself and her sister, Bea. The girls are taken in by a kindly fisherman named Silver, and Frieda begins to feel at home whenever she is on the water. When Silver sells his fishing boat to WWI veteran Sam Hicks, thinking Sam would be a fine husband for Frieda, she's outraged. But Frieda manages to talk Sam into teaching her to repair boat engines instead, so she has a trade of her own and won't have to marry.

Pastel Orphans

In 1930s Berlin, young Henrik, the son of a Jewish father and Aryan mother, watches the world around him crumbling: people are rioting in the streets, a strange yellow star begins appearing in shop windows, and friends are forced to move - or they simply disappear.

The Amber Keeper

After her mother's suicide, Abbie Myers returns home to the Lake District with her young child - and no wedding ring. Estranged from her turbulent family for many years, Abbie is heartbroken when she hears that they blame her for this tragedy. Determined to uncover her mother's past, Abbie approaches her beloved grandmother, Millie, in search of answers. The old woman reveals the story of how she travelled to Russia in 1911 as a young governess and became caught up in the revolution.

The Buried Book

It's 1952, and Jasper isn't allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He's lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle's good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she's coming back. Desperate to see her again, he must take matters into his own hands. From the farm, he embarks on a treacherous search that will take him to the squalid hideaways of Detroit and back again, through tawdry taverns, peep shows, and gambling houses.

You Are One of Them

In 1982, 10-year-olds Jenny and Sarah are best friends living in an upscale part of Washington D.C. A letter to Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov gets Jenny a visit to the USSR, but she dies in a plane crash. Years later, Sarah gets a letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny is still alive. You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep. In this insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long-lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we lost.

The House by the Lake

Anna is content with her well-ordered life in San Francisco. But her world is turned upside down when her beloved grandfather, Max, reveals a startling secret: Anna is part of an aristocratic family who lost everything during World War II. What's more, Max was forced to leave behind a precious item over 70 years ago in their estate in old Prussia. It's now his ardent wish that Anna retrieve it.

War Brides

As war moves ever closer, the sleepy English village of Crowmarsh Priors settles into a new sort of normal: Evacuees from London are billeted in local homes. The nightly German air raids become grimly mundane. Rationing curtails every comfort. Men leave to fight and die. And five women forge a bond of friendship that will change their lives forever in this engrossing novel of loyalty, loss, and love in the shadow of World War II.With the hardships of war intensifying every day, the women band together to defeat formidable enemies and find remarkable strength within themselves to help one another. It is a war-forged loyalty certain to endure years and distance. When four of the women return for a celebration fifty years later, their mission is not simply to commemorate or remember. They’ve returned to confront a traitor whose actions cost countless lives — and to avenge one of their own at last.

The Midwife's Revolt

On a dark night in 1775, Lizzie Boylston is awakened by the sound of cannons. From a hill south of Boston, she watches as fires burn in Charlestown, in a battle that she soon discovers has claimed her husband's life.

Carmen Moore says:"Seemed true to the thoughts of the revolutionary war"

Broken Angels

Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother's desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime. Blonde, blue-eyed Matilda is wrenched from her family in Romania and taken to Germany, where her captors attempt to mold her into the perfect Aryan child. Spirited and brave, she must inspire hope in the other stolen children to make her dreams of escape a reality.

In the village of Lauscha in Germany, things have been done the same way for centuries. The men blow the glass, and the women decorate and pack it. But when Joost Steinmann passes away unexpectedly one September night, his three daughters must learn to fend for themselves. While feisty Johanna takes a practical approach to looking for work, Ruth follows her heart, aiming to catch the eye of a handsome young villager.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.

Voyage of the Heart

1945: Along with hundreds of other war brides, Betty, Madeline, Alice, and June set sail for New York to be with the men they love. In the days they spend at sea, the four young women become firm friends and vow to stay in touch no matter what their new lives bring. Life in a new country comes with many challenges, but Betty, Madeline, Alice, and June didn't move half way across the world to give up without a fight.

Tabula Rasa

The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this action-packed debut thriller with a Katniss-esque heroine fighting to regain her memories and stay alive, set against a dystopian hospital background.

Sarah starts a crazy battle for her life within the walls of her hospital-turned-prison when a procedure to eliminate her memory goes awry and she starts to remember snatches of her past. Was she an urban terrorist or vigilante? Has the procedure been her salvation or her destruction?

The answers lie trapped within her mind. To access them, she'll need the help of the teen computer hacker who's trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, and a pill that's blocked by an army of mercenary soldiers poised to eliminate her for good. If only she knew why…

"This is a snap-the-whip story, dark and fast. The sparks of humor in the voice won me over. Bottom line: I think the cocktail of suspense and believable smart-assery adds up to an addictive dose of reader appeal." —Blythe Woolston, author of the William C. Morris Award winner The Freak Observer

The Leaving of Things

Vikram is not your model Indian-American teenager. Growing up in late 1980s Wisconsin, he is rebellious, adrift, and resentful of his Indian roots. But a disastrously drunken weekend becomes a one-way ticket back to the homeland for Vikram after his outraged parents decide to pack up the family and return to India.

The Neon Lawyer

With money and hope in short supply, newly minted attorney Brigham Theodore decides it’s time to lower his standards. He joins a seedy fly-by-night firm in Salt Lake City out of desperation. After he loses his first case - a speeding ticket - he’s convinced his career is over. But to his shock, his boss hands him a slightly more complex case: capital murder.

The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery, Book 1

Young vet Rachel Goddard's life changes one day when a child's scream activates a long-forgotten memory from her own childhood. Fearing that nothing about her family is what it seems, Rachel begins a quest for answers.

The Old Maid

The story follows the life of Tina, a young woman caught between the mother who adopted her - the beautiful, upstanding Delia - and her true mother, her plain, unmarried ‘aunt’ Charlotte, who gave Tina up to provide her with a socially acceptable life. The three women live quietly together until Tina’s wedding day, when Delia’s and Charlotte’s hidden jealousies rush to the surface.

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline's world is forever changed when Hitler's army invades Poland in September 1939 - and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement.

The Secret Scripture

Roseanne McNulty, once one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland, is now an elderly patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. As her 100th year draws near, she decides to record the events of her life, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards. Dr. Grene, Roseanne's caretaker, takes a special interest in her case. In his research, he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne's life than what she recalls.

Publisher's Summary

Benedetta Carlessimo is no stranger to hardship. Ever since her mother died, the sixteen-year-old Italian girl has cared for her rambunctious younger siblings without complaint. Then World War II arrives on her doorstep, leaving her face-to-face with the most terrible evil she has ever witnessed.

With the Germans and Americans fighting furiously to control a strategic swath of Italy, Nazi forces seize Benedetta’s village, turning her home into a command center—and forcing her beloved father to choose between fleeing or fighting on the front lines.

In the midst of great deprivation, Benedetta struggles to feed both her family and the Nazis, all the while keeping her father’s whereabouts secret. Yet her blossoming love for a handsome young Italian man hiding in the mountains brings a sliver of joy to her life. But with the Americans advancing and the Germans growing increasingly desperate and cruel, Benedetta knows that one misstep could bring horrible repercussions…and only an extraordinary act of courage can save her family.

Pros: The story was compelling. Teenage girl coming of age in an Italian village occupied by the Nazis as WWII draws to its conclusion and she is forced to live with, cook for and take care of Nazis who occupy her home. Her father runs away to join the resistance. She must fend off rapine and crazy Nazis and take care of her younger siblings and, oh yes, she falls in love!

The setting was well drawn. The people of the village were trapped in a situation not of their making with Monte Casino so close by and a major battle of WWII about to unfold.

Cons:The narration: Lots of scenery chewing marked by over-the-top breathlessness and refusal to use contractions. And young Dominic sounds like a 45-year-old smoker.

Lots of convenient coincidences: This is OK in moderation, but this novel milks the coincidence to death.

All in all: I am not returning it, but I can't recommend this. It's only an OK novel and the audible version leaves a fair amount to be desired.

This was a great story, that touches the heart. Reader does a great job portraying the German soldiers & Italian civilians. We all should go through these stories once n a while, to appreciate what we have & what others went through. Great read!

Retired CFO, Army wife, Mom of five, Grandma of six, two sons who served in combat, love to read books that reflect my values and faith, love mysteries, historical, military stories, and books that don't waste my time . . . if it doesn't have an ending that was worth the wait, I'm not a happy camper.

I love historical fiction, and this is the first one for me set in Italy during the second World War. Based on true events, when the Germans invaded Italy and took over the homes of ordinary Italian families, this story of Benedetta, a girl who is caring for her father and younger siblings following the death of her mother, is a tale of horror, devotion, bravery and love.

A wonderful and inspiring story! I'll never forget it. As an American of Italian descent and the daughter of a World War II American soldier, I was enthralled by the bravery of Benedetta and her determination to persevere through such perilous times.

It's interesting to hear how the people in this small Italian village coped with the horrors and injustice of WWII. It really made you think about how everyday people lives were totally changed by an event that they had no control of.